John Stewart
Tue, 08/30/2022
After some minor legal turbulence, a California wage and hour lawsuit filed by two former JetBlue flight attendants in 2015 has finally reached a settlement, which will require JetBlue to pay out $3.6 million, including attorneys’ fees, to a class of 568 current and former flight attendants. The lawsuit, styled Booher et al. v. JetBlue Airways Corp., No. 4:15-cv-01203 (N.D. Cal. Mar 13, 2015), sought to recover for unpaid overtime for shifts lasting over 8 hours, unlawfully inaccurate wage statements, and delayed payment of “final pay” due at termination/separation, under California wage and hour laws. Due to a legal dispute over the applicability of the statute that sets forth California’s detailed requirements for wage statements (California Labor Code Section 226), it has taken several years to bring the case in for a final landing.
First, on December 12, 2017, the court granted partial summary judgment in favor of JetBlue and dismissed plaintiffs’ claims for inaccurate wage statements. The court reasoned—incorrectly as it would turn out—that the wage statement requirements of Section 226 did not apply the flight attendants, because they spent much of their time outside California and they did not have their principal place of work in California.
Then, the Ninth Circuit issued rulings in two companion cases, Oman v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 835 Fed. App’x 272 (9th Cir. 2021) and Ward v. United Airlines, Inc., 986 F.3d 1234 (9th Cir. 2021), concerning the applicability of the wage statement requirements in Section 226 to flight attendants. Under the newly controlling authority of Oman and Ward, Section 226 applies “if the employee performs at least some work in California and ‘California serves as the physical location where the worker presents himself or herself to begin work.’” Ward, 986 F.3d at 1238. In other words, flight attendants based out of California were covered by California’s wage statement rules, even if they spent most of their time in other states. As a result, plaintiffs moved for reconsideration of the 2017 summary judgment ruling, and the court reinstated the JetBlue flight attendants’ claims for violations of Section 226.
However, the court credited JetBlue’s “good faith” defense to direct liability under Section 226, only allowing the flight attendants’ wage statement claims to proceed indirectly through California’s Private Attorney General Act (“PAGA”). As a result, certain statutory damages available under Section 226 would not have been available.
Remarkably, under the settlement achieved at mediation, “members of the Wage Statement Class will receive full relief (or close to it) for their wage statement claims, despite this Court’s ruling that JetBlue was entitled to a good faith defense to liability.” Specifically, the $3.6 million settlement includes $1,428,000 in recovery for the Section 226 claims that had been dismissed, which class counsel asserts had been valued at $1,345,100 for mediation.
In addition to the $1,428,000 to be distributed to the “wage statement class,” the settlement agreement also calls for $150,000 to be distributed to an “overtime class,” and $450,000 to be distributed to a “final pay class,” and $600,000 in PAGA penalties (with $450,000 to be sent to the State), as well as up to $900,000 in attorneys’ fees.
This settlement is a significant victory for the flight attendants directly involved in the California lawsuit, but it may be a meaningful sign for employers/employees in other states as well.
The District of Columbia Minimum Wage Revision Act (“MWRA”), for instance, requires covered employers to provide an “itemized statement” whenever wages are paid, showing the date of the wages paid, the gross wages paid, any deductions, the net wages paid, and the hours worked, among other information. The MWRA also requires, upon hiring and whenever an employee’s rate of pay changes, that the employer provide a written notice including, among other things, the employee’s “rate of pay and the basis of that rate.”
As the JetBlue flight attendants’ settlement demonstrates, “Wage Statement” and similar notice requirements should not be taken lightly, in California or elsewhere.
If you think your employer has not been complying with applicable wage and hour laws, please contact us by phone at 202-833-8855 or by email at info@mselaborlaw.com.
